


After the End

by Fleurete



Category: Tales of Zestiria
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-14
Updated: 2015-02-14
Packaged: 2018-03-12 08:53:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3350741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fleurete/pseuds/Fleurete
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mikleo measures his life by the lives of others. Or, snippets of his life after the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After the End

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: Major spoilers for the base game, particularly the epilogues. Also many liberties taken with some aspects of the game's plot.

It takes him almost all his strength to open his eyes while his body slowly regains feeling. His head hurts and his limbs dully ache, but he knows. He knows they’ve finally done it.

Near him he sees Lailah getting to her feet and dusting herself off. Farther away is Edna, her figure lying still on the grass but breathing evenly, her hands miraculously attached to her parasol.

A shadow falls over him, and Rose kneels down next to his head. Her hand is resting on his shoulder while she says softly, “Hey, you all right?” Her face is close enough that he can see her small smile and her eyes shining with recent tears. He can’t find it in himself to respond, and right now he doesn’t know if he ever will. Instead he manages to sit up and Rose pulls him to his feet.

By now Lailah is standing by them, and Edna is walking over with the help of Zaveid.  A silence reigns over them that none seem willing to break, but once everyone is near, Lailah holds her hands up to her chest in worry and asks Rose, “Did Sorey…?” The rest of her sentence fails her, but when Rose nods it is like a collective sigh is released, a sigh born out of both relief at the thought of a better world and out of sorrow at the fact that the world would not be able to experience the person who made it possible.

Lailah steps closer to him, and he knows he must have that look on his face that has always prompted Sorey to lay a hand on his arm, and with worry etched on his face and warmth in his voice, to ask, “Mikleo—“

But right now it is not his face that looks at him or his voice that he hears, and that causes Mikleo to look away sharply and at his frighteningly bare hands.

 

* * *

 

 

“Mikleo, you don’t have to do that.”

Mikleo can hear the heavy bullets of rain plummeting outside more than Sorey’s words, but his friend’s breath near his face alerts him more to the brunet’s presence than the downpour. Sorey grins at him despite his puffy eyes and dripping nose, and after Mikleo finishes fluffing Sorey’s pillows, Mikleo pouts a little and says indignantly, “But I want to!”

Sorey, from his seat in his bed and with a book in his lap, says a “Thank you.” He puts the book aside and makes to flop downwards, but before his head can reach the pillows Mikleo lets out a “Wait!” and moves as fast as his tiny frame can carry him toward a bucket of clean water. Reaching a cup inside, he pulls out a portion of the water and brings it over to Sorey.

“Those carvings on the wall were really cool, right?! That book said they look messy but I totally got what they were saying. But I’m really sorry that you had to go back with me in the—“ is as far as Sorey manages to get before he starts coughing his lungs out. Mikleo is beside him in a second, his eyes level with Sorey’s as he hands him the water. As the brunet takes the cup, he looks downward into it and his eyes immediately go wide. “Woah, how’d you do that?!”

Mikleo’s brows furrow. They both look into the cup and see their reflections staring back up at them from a thin layer of ice.

Later, Grandpa comes back after Sorey has fallen asleep. He spots the small pool of water that has frozen over and kindly explains to Mikleo what he is.

After Sorey mostly recovers from his cold, the two boys resume their usual exploration routine. However, Mikleo feels himself dragging behind. He tries to hide it behind smiles and jests but he is aware that Sorey knows him better than that. And so while sitting on the grass after a filling meal of boar meat, Sorey turns to him and puts a hand on his arm.

“Mikleo, what’s wrong?”

Sorey’s tone is quietly insistent and coated with worry. It does not take much for Mikleo to crack, and all at once he feels his child-like resolve break down and his mouth starts trembling. Tears erupt from his eyes and he blubbers, “I-I-I don’t want you to goooo! I thought you wanted to s-see that ancient g-grave and those ruins in the d-desert and that place filled with l-lava but you didn’t t-tell me that you were g-going to—and that I—“ Mikleo’s hiccup interrupts his tirade before Sorey’s hug has a chance to.

When Mikleo manages to calm down, Sorey holds him at arm’s length and looks him in the eye. His smile is contagious and soon Mikleo finds his face dry.

“I’m not going anywhere!” Sorey’s voice is filled with a resolution that only kids can command, but Mikleo still has his doubts.

“But, but … I’m going to live for a looooooong—“ Here Mikleo stretches his arms out wide, “time, Sorey!”

His friend looks puzzled for a moment, but without further hesitation pumps his arm into the air and exclaims, “Well, I’ll have to be eeeextra careful not to lose!” And with a pause, adds, “We’ll just do everything together then, that way we both win!”

The determination on Sorey’s face makes the other boy giggle, and Mikleo’s fears dissolve into the wind.

 

* * *

 

 

He goes back to Elysia.

The air is heavy with unspoken assumptions and fears, and Mikleo knows that everyone hopes he will prove them wrong. For most of their fears, he does not. Preparations are started right away for two small monuments, carved with intricate patterns by the most skilled craftsman in the village.

As Mikleo speaks to familiar faces and is comforted by many, memories dog his heels and float at his back. In the corner of his eye he sees the large rock they used to sit on to read if the weather was nice, and in the distance is the cliff they dangled their legs over if they were feeling reckless.

The others have gone back with him and he is thankful for that. Lailah and Rose have tried to talk to him, to offer words of comfort. Mikleo accepts those regarding his Grandpa, but he faces those about his friend with hesitation. Sorey is—was—important to everybody else too, and guilt gnaws at him for not uttering the same words back.

He can see exhaustion in the shadows on the faces of his companions and in their every movement. Despite this, conviction and resolution breathe into every crevice, and the future hangs like a weight at the forefront of everyone’s minds. A new shepherd has to be chosen and they have to move on.

The sun starts to set as he heads inside Grandpa’s house. His eyes run over the piles of books covered in dust and the bed he and Sorey used to sleep in as kids, its quit neatly folded without a wrinkle. He runs a hand over a series of books on the shelf when a knock sounds at the door, with Rose stepping inside a moment after. Mikleo greets her with a nod and she makes her way to a particularly tall stack of tomes, taking off the top volume and shaking it free of its thin blanket of dirt.

“I wanted to make sure you were doing all right. It can’t be good to be surrounded by so much dust.” Rose grins at him, her voice light and playful. Mikleo doesn’t quite manage to look her in the eye when he replies, “Yes, I’m fine.”

She takes in a deep breath as if to prepare herself before she says, “I … I’m wondering what you’re planning on doing. I’ve already been asked if I wanted to be the new shepherd, and if I do … we’d love it if you could come with us.” Her eyes are warm and quietly questioning, and her small smile sets Mikleo more at ease.

Even though his mind is numb with old remembrances and visions that remind him of someone and of words between them both spoken and unspoken, of touches that now only ghost over his skin, he is restless. He aches to cross that endless and dragging path he sees in front of him, to hopefully meet that person on this road. He knows it will be a long way.

He tells Rose he will think about it.

 

* * *

 

 

“Mikleoooooo!”

He turns his head from his position on the hill. When the sun is bright and nightfall is still a ways away, he can see all around him like an eagle on its perch. Now though, the dark surrounds him and all the monuments he can usually see are in hiding.

Lailah continues to wave her hands in the air, but has ceased in calling his name. When he descends the hill and reaches her, she holds out a metal pot with her sleeves rolled up slightly, and asks, “Some water, please!” After Mikleo obliges her, she places the pot over a fire she created only moments earlier. The vegetables she drops in make a series of _plops_ that are masked by the crackling of the fire.

“They should be back soon,” Lailah hums as she flops onto the ground, her dress billowing out onto the grass and making a cloud of white smoke around her. Mikleo bends down to tend to the food. He can feel eyes on his back and he does his best to ignore it until he hears, “Mikleo, you should come rest!”

A warning bell goes off in his head as it always does when she sounds sugary sweet—he can still remember his face in the mirror when she thought it would be a good idea to try out Edna’s hairstyle on him—but he sighs to himself and walks over to her. Before he can sit beside her, she pulls his arm and sends him crashing into her, his head in her lap. He lets out a squawk that he will deny uttering later, but Lailah only barely hears it through the sound of her own laughter. He can feel the heat in his cheeks when he splutters, “W-what—!“

Mikleo stops struggling when she gently shushes him, and despite his better judgement he feels his limbs relax when she cards her fingers through his hair. After a few moments, she says quietly, “Maybe you should cut your hair.”

He knows it has been a while since they departed from Elysia—at least to a human. But to him the last twenty years have seemed even longer than that. He watches Rose age faster than he ever has, and because of this he knows that time must be passing, that the world must be changing. But he still dreams of brown hair and yellow feathers and he still calls the same name after he wakes, hoping that somehow he will hear an answer that is not his own echo. The only sign of change that he can spot in his person is his slightly longer hair that now reaches his shoulders.

In response, he glares at her and gestures toward her massive ponytail. “ _You’re_ telling me?”

Lailah blinks, and then her giggling floats into the night, a song. “You’re right, you’re right.” Resuming her combing of his hair, she hums a tune that he vaguely recalls hearing back in one of the cities they had visited. He lets her continue for a while until he says, “Lailah.” At her affirmative “mhm,” he continues, “… How can you—we—survive for so long? How do you pass the time? Doesn’t it … hurt … to see everything—everybody—you used to know … fade?” His eyes are averted and he is extremely embarrassed to be so straightforward, but Lailah’s gaze at the fire tells him she doesn’t know or care.

The only sounds are those of the wind and the crackling of the fire, and Mikleo is about to brush his questions off as a terribly lucid dream when Lailah whispers with her hands still in his hair, “For me, it can be hard to remember. Things get jumbled up in your head, like puzzle pieces. But the good thing is that nothing can hurt for that long. ” She pauses, then looks down at him at smiles. “Besides, living with you and everybody else—I could do it forever!” Mikleo knows that she is not exactly telling the truth, but does not bother to correct her.

After Rose, Zaveid, and Edna return, they eat and end up sleeping around the pyre. He remains awake, watching the fire burn until it takes its final breath, its shuddery exhale turning into a last rush of smoke.

 

* * *

 

The city is dressed in flowers for Alisha’s memorial.

Mikleo and the others have been staying in the city since Alisha had become confined to her quarters, her now gray hair behind her on her pillow and her legs too frail to walk outside her mansion. They did not leave her side during the two month sentence, and on her final day they cried for her. Her now unseeing eyes were wrinkled by the great smile she gave when she thanked them.

The roads and walkways are teeming with well-wishers, citizens from neighbouring cities, and even visitors from the Lowlance Empire. Lily petals sprinkle the brick paths and bouquets adorn the windows of every house and shop, of every castle and inn.

The ceremony starts at twelve sharp. A gilded casket of gold, commissioned and given by the Emperor of Lowlance, is carried throughout the city into the centre and is drenched in flowers thrown by supporters. The king comes forth and begins his speech: “We are all here today to honor the princess and knight Alisha Diphda. All of you will remember her steadfast resolution in the face of trouble, and her relentless drive which have inspired us all. It is thanks to her that we, the people of the Hyland Kingdom, live in harmony with the Kingdom of Lowlance.”

Mikleo finds it both amusing and abhorrent that the nobles of the country are showing Alisha in death the respect and recognition she deserved while alive.

He remembers the last conversation he had with her. A week ago, it had been her birthday. They were staying the night at her mansion and after the celebrations had died down well into dusk, Mikleo had trouble sleeping. He snuck into the study downstairs to read, but spotted Alisha seated near the fireplace. The creak of the door alerted her to his presence, and she called out, “Mikleo?” He grabbed one of her favorite books of a shelf and sat in the armchair beside her. They had done this numerous times before.

She searched for his hand, and he placed his in hers. The roughness of her hand against his strangely smooth skin made him feel inhuman. He felt as if he had robbed her of her life to stay young.

“How was your birthday?” Mikleo asked. On top of the large table behind them lay their gifts. He had given her a new spear, a replica of the one she used long ago but that was now spotted with rust. When he had told Rose his idea, she exclaimed, “No fair! I wanted to do that!”

Alisha gripped his hand tighter and said happily, “The best I’ve had in a long time. I’ve always loved your desserts.” Mikleo—along with the help of mostly Lailah—had baked a chocolate cake with candied citrus peels laid out on top in the shape of a “79,” reprieving the usual chef of his duties. There wasn’t a slice left.

Her grip on his loosened and he looked over at her. Even though he knew she could not see him, it was like she was looking through him, his insides exposed for the entire world to see. She continued, “I don’t want to ask, but I’m worried about you, Mikleo. The others … they’ve told me about …” Her voice, once powerful and commanding, was now a shadow of what it used to be. Despite this, her words reverberated throughout the room and seemed to fill the nearly empty house.

He knew what she was talking about, that gap she laid out for him. He never felt comfortable sleeping unless it was in the privacy of his own room, for he would lay restless and eventually stay up all night reading, or his sleep would be fitful, his dreams filled with faint outlines of someone and with the scent of those dusty ruins they used to visit, old monuments lost to time.

He did not try to deny it, and instead muttered, “It’s been happening for a while.”

Alisha laid her other hand on top of theirs, and let out a sigh. “I know it might not mean much … but I think he is going to return. I just don’t want you waiting so long for it …” The sadness in her voice was palpable, and he could find it in himself to say only, “Me too.”

“I’m so jealous of you. When you see him, please tell him I’m so grateful for what he’s done. The whole country is.” At this moment, her voice returned to her usual splendor, and he thought of the young human woman who had found her way into his village. He squeezed her hands and said, “Of course I will.”

A few moments later, she withdrew her hands and gestured toward the book she knew he was holding. “ _Oldest Ruins of the Hyland Kingdom_ , right? If you don’t mind Sir Mikleo, I want to continue from last time.”

Without further ado, he ran his fingers to the bookmarked page and began reading out to her, “Generally considered one of the newer shrines …”

 

* * *

 

“The colossal archway in the leftmost area is believed to have been thought of as a portal to the underworld.”

Mikleo’s eyes fall over the sentence but the lines on the page blur together. The night is silent except for the whistling of the wind.

They are stopping more and more frequently at inns and rest stops now. In the ten years since Alisha’s death, Rose has gotten weaker, her back beginning to arch and her thoughts leaving her. He thinks that he is getting old, and with every change of the seasons he expects to grow crippled, like how Rose has waned. As the years pass and he feels himself sluggishly growing taller, his chest slowly broadening and his clothes getting tighter, he thinks he has been forgotten by time.

His eyes start drooping as he struggles to read. When his chin drops to his chest, he gives up his futile attempt to stay awake and shuts his book. Letting his hair fall loose from its small ponytail, he curls into the covers.

That night he dreams of flowers having their petals torn loose and a bird with golden wings just out of his reach.

In two days a third gravestone joins the two at Elysia.

 

* * *

 

He watches the world change with a quiet impassivity. Cities have collapsed and buildings have seemed to shoot up from beneath the earth. Places that were once breeding grounds for Hellions are now sprawling with human life.

The only things that haven’t changed are the ruins he explores.

He spends his years constantly moving, drifting from city to city, country to country. When he is not asleep, his feet lead him onto stone pathways, grassy plains, muddy roads. Sometimes he keeps walking until his legs threaten to give out from under him.

It is during one of these journeys that he meets Edna and Zaveid.

He has been in the mountainous regions of the east for several months now, wandering through sparse settlements and the debris of places that used to be whole tens, hundreds, thousands of years ago.  The ruins here are some of the more labyrinthine ones he’s seen, and there is an unusually large number of Hellions inhabiting the mountains.

He is kneeling at a lake at the base of a snow-capped mountain when he hears a guttural roar behind him. A second after he whirls around and materializes his staff, a massive pillar rises up from the ground and sends the creature flying over his head into the still water. After the dust clears, he sees Edna looking down at him from a short way up the mountain, her mouth tilted up in a small smirk.

She takes him back to a small abandoned cabin nestled in the heart of the hills.

He wonders how long she has been here, but the untouched layers of grime and dust on almost every surface answers his question. As soon as the door shuts behind them, a “Mikleo?!” sounds to his right, and Zaveid’s hand descends on his head to ruffle his hair. “Aww, he’s all grown up!”

Edna thumps the tip of her parasol on the floor. “That’s our Mibo for you.” Mikleo means to make some kind of quip, but laughter bubbles out of him instead at hearing Edna’s old nickname for him after so long. His own surprise at this is mirrored by Edna, whose eyes widen almost imperceptibly. Her expression is quickly replaced by a small smile.

“Y’know, if I hadn’t recognized that stern face, I would’ve thought you were a girl,” Zaveid says as he slings his arm around his shoulder. Even with hundreds of years, he still has to look up slightly to meet Zaveid’s eyes.

This time Mikleo splutters, “Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you.”

They make up for lost time. Even though it was his choice to set off all those years ago, Mikleo occasionally and unconsciously retraces the steps of their journey in his dreams—dreams that always end with visions of a sleeping, lifeless body imprinted on his eyelids.

They tell Mikleo they have been fighting Hellions.

“That’s all?”

Edna spins her umbrella as she replies, “It’s something to do.” Zaveid adds, “Though our job’s been getting easier.”

He knows what Zaveid means. Mikleo has taken this gradual fading of taint as a measure of time. However, the passing of centuries has only seemed to cause the presence of the Hellions to dim. As soon as he tries to extinguish what remains, more follow like weeds.

For Mikleo, what used to be a question of _when_ his friend will wake up has now become an _if_.

Edna eyes Mikleo’s fingers toying with the yellow feather secured with a string around his waist. Her head cocks to the side and she comments, “Your hair’s really grown. You could probably use it as a scarf—it gets cold here.”

“It’s not _that_ long,” retorts Mikleo, but he runs his fingers through his pale length of hair all the same. The wind earlier in the day had tangled it. Even though he feels like the ruins he explores, unchanging and static, his larger frame and tips of hair reaching down his back prove him wrong.

“Here, it looks like you could use this.” Edna hands him a small brush, but Mikleo stares at it. “Wha—?”

“It’s Zaveid’s.” Mikleo looks at him, but the other man just shrugs and says, “Hey, I’ve gotta look good.”

He sits in a chair and starts working out the tangles in his hair while he asks, “You two haven’t been here long, have you. But why here?”

Zaveid leans back on the headboards on one of the beds and replies, “It gets dull just sitting around. Hasn’t it been the same for you?”

Mikleo winces as he tries to brush past a knot. “I suppose you’re right.”

“When you’ve got all the time in the world, even the most exciting places get boring,” Zaveid asserts with an air of seriousness, his head tilted up toward the ceiling. Mikleo remains silent, wondering at the wanderlust that has seemed to take hold of them all.

After struggling to untangle yet another clump of hair, Edna huffs and fixes him with a weary glance. “If you don’t stop doing that you’re going to go bald.”

Before Mikleo can protest (because he doesn’t think he’s being that rough), Edna pries the brush from his hands and stands behind him. From his spot on the bed, Zaveid chirps, “She gets annoyed with me when I do it too.”

The first time she runs the brush down his hair causes him to yelp, “Ow! Don’t do that!” as his head is yanked back. She lets out an “Oops. Sorry,” but her sly smile tells him otherwise.

They fall into a surprisingly peaceful rhythm. Mikleo feels somewhat suspicious after Edna’s first attempt to tear his head off, but her movements become gentle and even. He feels himself nodding off when Edna remarks, “You know, usually people mourn by cutting their hair. Like the heroines in those books Zaveid’s always reading.”

Zaveid’s “Hey!” falls on deaf ears. Mikleo thinks to himself, is he really that obvious? He fears admitting to them the apparitions that haunt him, the illusions he tries to leave behind. He has tried to ignore the voice of excitement that seems to emanate from the walls of ruins and the fleeting touch of rough hands on his skin when he sleeps. These mirages remind of him of what he may never again experience.

Mikleo’s response comes out as a whisper when he says, “Rose and Alisha died centuries ago. Isn’t that a bit too long to be mourning?”

Edna murmurs, “Maybe.” Mikleo hears the unsaid words in her soft voice: _You’re a bad liar._ She continues after a while, even more quietly this time, “Lailah’s the same. She grew her hair after the contract with her first shepherd broke.”

This information startles Mikleo. “What? How do you know that?” Lailah’s secretiveness regarding the previous shepherds during their travels together has always stuck out in his memory.

He feels her grip on his hair tense and her motions become erratic when she says, “My brother… he—‘

“He—and I—witnessed it. The death of that shepherd,” Zaveid interjects. Mikleo almost jumps at his sudden interruption, but he quickly recollects himself. He looks at the wall when he asks, “Why are you telling me this?”

Zaveid sits up on the bed and with his chin in his hand says, “Time heals everything.”

Mikleo wants to shout. Time? Time has only made Mikleo ache for him more, has only invigorated the memories he wants to forget.

Edna performs one last tug on his hair and when she walks in front of him, she has her usual smirk on her face. “So, Posileo, what are you going to do now?”

He doesn’t know how to answer her. He knows they are trying to comfort him, and after so long a separation, he craves their company.

Instead, he thanks them for their help and leaves that night.

 

* * *

 

The crystalline sky shines above him as he heads up the series of stone steps covered in roots and ivy. If the relics of ancient locales have taught him anything, it is that nature always reclaims her territory.

He had been wanting to explore this place since he was a child. It was in the first picture that Sorey pointed at and with an enthusiastic voice, exclaimed, “I want to go here!” That image had stayed in both their minds growing up, and they promised to go see the actual thing before they died.

While leafing through books the night before, he arrived at the very same picture. He avoided going here as best he could, but the next morning found him walking here as if the picture had flipped a switch inside him.

The stairs lead into the mouth of the ancient edifice. Once inside, he gazes at the hieroglyphs on the wall and continues climbing. He can feel sweat forming on his skin and the warmth in the air when he steps into the next area, a massive room with a seemingly endless ceiling and rivers of lava running along the walls and at his feet. He could not have imagined a place like this in all his dreams, and he spends some time studying the colossal statue at the back of the room. The civilization at the time had built it to honor their queen, a woman believed to have been related to the gods.

He is about to turn back when he notices a small passageway to the right, hardy visible through mounds of stone. Ah, he thinks, that must be where they offered their prayers.

The stark contrast between this prayer room and the area adjoining it is apparent to him immediately in the form of the cerulean shade of the interior. The water surrounding the center platform and the pathway is still and his skin cools.

The middle of the room is lit by an enormous skylight, and he welcomes the sun’s rays. Suddenly he feels like the people using this shrine must have been, with the serenity brought by the heavens shining down on him. He feels at peace here, something that has not happened for a long while.

At the end of the platform, a small fortification with a large jewel in the center faces him, raised on a podium. He reaches out to touch the jewel, but as soon as he does the floor he is standing on collapses from beneath him.

He prepares himself for the impact, but his fall abruptly stops and he musters up enough courage to open his eyes. When he looks up, he thinks that he must be hallucinating, that his dreams have come to life. He sees a familiar glove and bracelet holding onto his own hand, and suddenly his breath catches and his eyes widen. He tries to convince himself he is seeing things, but from deep within him his heart swells and he _knows_. He knows that everything is done, that the taint has disappeared, that the world—and the man holding him—have not forgotten him.

And so, with a glowing smile blooming on his face, he grabs onto Sorey with his other hand.

**Author's Note:**

> So I haven't even played the game yet?? (And that probably explains my characterization of some personalities in this story, ha) But I've had this bouncing around in my head since I saw the epilogue(s), and I wanted to explore what Mikleo has to go through before Sorey comes back for him, and all that Sorey's missed. And yeah, just forget things like Mikleo still having short hair during Rose's funeral in the game... cough...


End file.
